Report: NFL owners believe ‘time may have come’ for Snyder to sell Commanders

Throughout the investigation and controversy surrounding the Washington football franchise, the assumption by most has been that owner Dan Snyder would not be forced to sell the team. 

But according to one prominent football reporter, that could be changing. 

ProFootballTalk’s Mike Florio said during the Super Bowl pregame show on NBC that Snyder’s fellow NFL owners may no longer support him. 

“I’m told for the first time ever there is a sense among ownership that the time may have come for Daniel Snyder to move on,” Florio reported Sunday. 

“I’m told for the first time ever there is a sense among ownership that the time may have come for Daniel Snyder to move on.” — @ProFootballTalk report on eroding NFL support for Commanders owner. pic.twitter.com/tcCA4iM10n

— NBC Sports Washington (@NBCSWashington) February 13, 2022

Florio said the new allegations from Tiffani Johnston, which she made during a roundtable hosted by the House Oversight and Reform Committee earlier this month, have changed the landscape. 

“As one ownership-level source recently put it, the Johnston allegations could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back for the league, prompting Snyder’s partners to take steps to push him out,” Florio wrote on his website Sunday. 

Johnston, who spent eight years working for the team, accused Snyder of touching her inappropriately twice. She said he placed his hand on her thigh underneath a dinner table and later on her back.

She also said Snyder tried to “aggressively” push her toward his limousine and encouraged her to take a ride with him. She said it made her uncomfortable as she repeatedly told him no. Snyder called the accusations “outright lies” in a statement.

Last week, the NFL then undercut Snyder after he announced the hiring of an investigative team to look into the sexual misconduct accusations made against him. The NFL said the league, not Snyder, would be responsible for a new probe into the scandal.

The league’s rebuff of the Washington owner came fast on the heels of Snyder‘s announcement that he had hired law firm Pallas Global Group LLC to conduct a “thorough and independent investigation” into Johnston’s claims.

“I do not see any way that a team can do its own investigation of itself,” NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said at his pre-Super Bowl press conference in Los Angeles last week.

The NFL then wrote in a letter to the House Oversight and Reform Committee that the Commanders franchise, not the league, is blocking the release of more than 100,000 documents requested by the panel. In the letter, the NFL said that Washington has “insisted” it will only grant access to the documents if the team can review them for privilege first to decide which of them they can turn over. The league adds that it views this as an “unacceptable approach.”

Matthew Paras contributed to this report.